The following offers an example of how to explicate a
poem. You should note that explication, much like a standard argument
paper, needs a specific thesis with a limited focus. In poetry
explication, we may choose to discuss the tone, the narrative or action,
rhetorical devices, characterization, structure, etc. For an overview of
poetry's elements, see the chart on the "Understanding
Poetry" page (linked to Introduction to Literature I) by clicking the
link.

[The poem for explication is
Robert Graves' "Counting the Beats": the explication
follows Graves' poem.]

Counting the Beats

Robert Graves (1895 – 1985)

You, love, and I,

(He whispers) you and I,

And if no more than only you and I

What care you or I?

Counting the bests,

Counting the slow heart beats,

The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,

Wakeful they lie.

Cloudless day,

Night, and a cloudless day,

Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one
day

From a bitter sky.

Where shall we be,

(She whispers) where shall we be,

When death strikes home, O where then shall we be

Who were you and I?

Not there but here,

(He whispers) only here,

As we are, here, together, now and here,

Always you and I.

Counting the beats,

Counting the slow heart beats,

The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,

Wakeful they lie.

[Explication]

The Negative Tone of Robert Graves’ "Counting the
Beats"

The most notable quality of Robert
Graves’ "Counting the Beats" remains the tone of the poem, which conveys
a stark simplicity that both colors the poem’s "feel" as well as
paints a pessimistic image of the events. In an ambiguous setting, the poem
depicts a nameless man and woman engaged in intimate dialogue, complemented by a
narrator’s ironic knowledge of events beyond the limits of the couple. [I intend
to argue that] That narrative voice establishes a tone of bleak hopelessness in
which the established mood of the poem becomes more important than the limited
events of an unidentified man and woman. Their actions are simple at best: while
the dialogue between the pair suggests a love affair, it does not progress
beyond three short statements, their conversation, coupled with the narrator’s
prescient observations that indicate an inevitable unhappy future.

With the opening of the poem, the
man asks a question, rhetorical perhaps, that seems harmless enough: "And
if no more than only you and I / What care you or I?" By his statement, he
seems content or resolved that only the two of them remain important—but with
regard to what: their place in the universe? their private love? or their fear
of the future? The volta, or "turn," at the beginning of the line
colors the tone of his question, apparently confirming his suspicion that their
love has limitations and exists in isolation, rather than his asking something for
which he seeks an answer. Besides isolation, his statement also suggests
loneliness and negativity. Our suspicions that we should interpret his question
in this manner become confirmed by the last two lines in the poem’s more
objective reprise, "The bleeding to death of time in slow heart
beats." That their hearts beat slowly appears to indicate that passion has
been dulled, or perhaps that it goes absent or spent. Reflection dominates
as opposed to action or involvement between the pair, which appears as
negative: "bleeding to death" tells us of a slow demise, one of
entropy. Our two protagonists allow life, and with it
love, to escape from them in slow, measured time, as indicated by the slow beats
of their hearts.

The ambiguity of the scene, wherein we
know nothing of the place, circumstances, or identities of the couple, seems
secondary to other considerations, most notably the voltas encountered in the
poem and the bleak direction they lead the reader: "And if no more"
continues an ambiguous thought, but it leads nowhere. By phrasing the reflection
in the negative—"if no more"—a reader reflects upon limitation, the
quiet affirmation of defeat and a smallness of their love that falls even short
of sadness in its tone, suggesting rather an insignificance that no reader can
rise above in sympathizing with the couple’s affection.

Other phrases are just
as telling in indicating the overall negative feel of the poem. The narrator’s
reprise states that the pair remain "wakeful," as if worried or deep
in thought, which confirms that their questions do not seek answers but appear more
like meditations. So too, the opening line of the twice-repeated stanza—"Counting
the beats"—does not supply a subject as to who does the counting or why
it becomes necessary. We must suspect that the implied subject of the line
points to the couple themselves, as they count the beats of their wakeful hearts
in a quiet, still time that does not give rest or bring them closer together. The two have few words to exchange with one another and, because they apparently
do not wish to disturb each other further, each whispers. The effects of
both quiet and suggestive phrases such as "death strikes home" or
"bleeding to death" negatively indicate the sadness of the pair’s
love as opposed to anything affirming. Moreover, their love seems to flow in the
wrong direction as their blood does not stimulate, "course" through
them with passion, but bleeds out like slow suicide, like self-inflicted wounds.

So it is that the simple
events and intimate setting of the man and woman, those that often situate
couples in love poems, here suggest love as a negative: do they force one
another into despair? Once again, the simplicity of the language indicates that
feel or impression. To her question of where they shall be "When death
strikes home," he responds "Not there but here." That ambiguity
of a place or state of existence as only "there" and "here"
seems fatalistic, even as his first word, "Not," abruptly ends
whatever question she may have had as to the future. His rejoinder of a negative
and contradiction—"Not there but here"—not only summarizes their
predicament, it limits the range of how much we as readers should care. After
all, no specifics are available: where would "there" be and why should
we care? We remain all too familiar with the "here" of the lovers, a
depressing place of limitation, absent passion, and the entropy of love—wasted
energy that affords no use.

Indeed, the narrator underscores
this fatalism, who, as an omniscient observer possesses more knowledge of the
future than do they. How this information may be possible does not interest us
as readers, because we focus on the simplicity—the language, the setting, the
ambiguous but unfettered relationship—and thus take for granted that any
future for the pair must be as uncomplicated in its inevitability as are the
events and conversation that precede it. Again, the volta serves as the key to
the tone, which follows the lines "Cloudless day, / Night, and a cloudless
day." The narrator follows this seemingly hopeful image with
"Yet." The word suddenly causes us to re-think the meaning of the
preceding lines. Now "Cloudless day" reads more like an absence of
something as opposed to safety or the freedom from care; we feel a cyclical
sameness, boredom, and the inevitability of time, and with it an inevitable
future: "Yet the huge storm will burst upon their heads one day / From a
bitter sky." Adding to the more obvious words of "burst" and
"bitter," the definite article "the" as opposed to the
indefinite "a" adds a touch of simplicity that colors the mood all the
more. Troubles and pain to come are not generic; "the" storm, as
opposed to one of generality, forces readers once again to appreciate the couple
as fated, a fact the narrator shares with us at their expense. And still the
reasons remain ambiguous: is the storm of their making? Have they failed to
involve themselves in events so as to cause what is to come? Or is such a
future one that demonstrates that their choice to be removed from the world
reflects a selfishness offering no excuse and no freedom from pain? "What
care you or I" would seem to imply the latter, as if the narrator wishes to
inform us with the word "Yet" that the lack of decision is in itself a
choice, and one that offers regret since it comes from a "bitter sky."

Fatalism suggests not only
finality but unfairness. What could these two do to change the future? What will
that future be; what does the "huge storm" entail? While all of these
questions appear important, the tone of the poem remains dismissive, posing them in
ambiguity. Even the narrator, who, if removed from the mood of the work, seems
intrusive—prying, at best—does not appear out of place. He observes the
scene but does not answer their questions for us; rather, the omniscient voice
merely states the obvious, the inevitable, as the lovers’ own rhetorical
questions suggest that the future, whether set by God, Fate, or Chance, engulfs,
overwhelms, and controls them. And thus the reader’s question—are they the
cause of their own destruction or merely caught up in some other design?—becomes
meaningless, for the narrator’s own presence adds another negative tone: while
the two are not alone, the omniscient voice here will not intercede; it merely
knows.

To underscore the tone’s importance in
Graves’ poem, we note that were we to isolate events as to sequence, those
elements we assign to plot, the poem would not survive. Indeed, no scene exists
but that which we conjure by virtue of our response to the dialogue of two
lovers. And in this instance, we realize that the tone or feel of what is said
surpasses what takes place. We glean more from the texture of the words and
their manner of expression, simplicity in the extreme, than descriptive phrases
could possibly detail for us about the two. Tone indicates the plot’s
irrelevancy, since how we feel becomes more important than what we know, and
because the simplistic setting involves itself with seemingly basic feelings and
expressions. In fact, only one word in the poem is more than two syllables in
length—notably, the word "together." And even here we do not feel
certain that the word should be interpreted as positive, as if
"together" denoted union, happiness, or completion. Rather, because of
the poem’s tone, the word "together" suggests a problem, or that
which causes the pair to be "Not there but here" in death. Replacing
specifics for the indefiniteness of "here" or "there" would
not, we suspect, yield more comfort, because the absence of those details
affords small but recognizable relief in a poem that speaks of "the
bleeding to death of time." The less we know, the better. And in a poem of
indeterminable place, event, or speakers, the tone suggests all we need, or
perhaps desire, to know.